Yoda

 

On this day, exactly a year ago, Yoda, our beloved cat, passed way. I will never forget that day. It was an hour past midnight when I was awoken by his intermittent crying. After observing him for a few seconds, the idea dawned on me: Yoda was in grave danger. I frantically woke up my wife and told her what was happening. I said Yoda had to be taken to the nearest veterinary clinic as soon as possible. She was understandably reluctant at first, considering that it was only 1 o ‘clock in the morning, and she probably didn’t think that Yoda’s situation was really serious. But sensing my desperation—I was panicking and shouting—she went along with me and both of us hurriedly took Yoda to the veterinary clinic two blocks away.

But taking Yoda to the veterinary clinic at 1:00 AM was the easy part; waking up the veterinarian was a different matter. For almost 30 minutes, I and my wife unavailingly tried to wake her up by constantly shouting “Tao po! Tao po!” (“Anybody there? Anybody there?”). We knew that we were causing a serious disturbance in the neighborhood, and that people were probably awakened by our nonstop yelling, but we didn’t care. Some things are more important than maintaining one’s respectability.

Meanwhile, Yoda, who was being held by my wife in her arms, continued to make his loud yowling. My wife, who had already started panicking by this time, begged Yoda to hang on a little longer, and assured him that Papa and Mama were with him. A few minutes before the veterinarian finally appeared, I noticed that Yoda’s crying was beginning to tail off. I knew it was over; Yoda was going to die. I told this to my wife and she cried. Later that morning, after talking to the veterinarian who appeared only to confirm what we already knew, i.e. that Yoda was dead, my wife told me that before Yoda gave his last faint cry, she bade him goodbye, and told him that his Mama and Papa loved him so much. I wish I could have done the same.

For almost a week, I locked myself away. I even refused to meet my in-laws who came over from Manila for our grandmother’s birthday celebration. I just couldn’t believe that Yoda, our baby, was gone. Yoda, who came to us just ten months previously as a two-month old kitten. Yoda, who was a sweetheart from the very beginning, who refused to get off my chest whenever he slept. Yoda, whose food we always meticulously prepared, and for whose sake we purchased a weighing scale to make sure that he receives the right amount of food for his age and weight. Yoda, who could always be counted on to meet us at the door whenever we came home from work. Yoda, in whose behalf and for whose safety I never failed to say a little prayer every morning before I left for work. That Yoda was no more. That Yoda was gone. Forever. Just like that.

But what made his death even more painful and difficult to bear for me was the fact that I could have prevented it. The reason I was certain that Yoda was in grave danger and why I was determined to take him to the veterinarian in spite of my wife’s initial reluctance, was because I already noticed something about him before I slept at around 9 PM. A depression was forming around his hip area whenever he breathed. I mentioned it to my wife and she said that worried though we both were, there was nothing we could do about it at that hour, given that all clinics were already close by then. She assured me that she would take Yoda to the veterinarian first thing in the morning. I relented and tried to put the matter in the back of my mind.

And so for the next couple of weeks, I felt miserable. Whenever I passed by Yoda’s favorite spots in the house, whenever I saw the pillows he used to sleep on, whenever my thoughts strayed into the night before he died, I would lose it. I could not accept the fact that Yoda was really gone. What was worse, I could not get the idea off my mind that for several hours before he passed, he was in severe pain. The memory of him looking restless the night before he died, small and deep furrows forming on his hips whenever he breathed, haunted me. Yoda, I thought, was in unbearable pain, and his papa and mama were not able to help him. I was in such a sorry state for a long time that soon my wife got so worried about me. She advised me that I should try not to think about what happened too much because it might soon take a toll on my health.

It also did not help that a lot of people were so insensitive about Yoda’s death, or dismissive of our pain. On the day Yoda died, an old friend messaged me about the Facebook update I made where I bade farewell to a “little one.” Apparently she thought I was pertaining to a child or a baby because when I said I was referring to our pet cat who just passed, she replied, “Akala ko kung ano na.” (“I thought it was something serious.”). My wife, who had also been terribly affected by Yoda’s death, also mentioned to me an incident at her workplace. A colleague, she said, had asked her why she looked upset. When she told her that our pet cat had just died, this colleague of hers laughed boisterously. She said the same thing as the old friend I mentioned above, i.e. that from the way my wife looked, she thought that something tragic has befallen one of her loved ones. By loved ones, of course, she meant human beings. (To be continued)